Home Business Marketing Money Saving Tips

Filed in archive marketing on March 19, 2007

The ever popular business magazine, which has an online version, Entrepreneur.com has an article on Top 50 Ways to Save Money in Your Business.

Among the 50 tips, the frugal ways to market your business got my attention. The most notable marketing methods on a shoestring budget include the following:

1. Piggyback your advertising. Including advertising material in other mailings, such as in invoices, saves postage and other costs, says J. Donald Weinrauch, co-author of The Frugal Marketer. Likewise, make the most of your point-of-purchase opportunities by tucking coupons, newsletters or other promotional fliers in the bag with customers' purchases.

2. Be a good neighbor. Split advertising and promotion costs with neighboring businesses. Jointly promote a sidewalk sale, or take your marketing alliance further by sharing mailing lists, distribution channels and suppliers with businesses that sell complementary goods or services.

3. Ask the people you know for help. The kind of support you'd most like to get from your contacts is referrals-the names of specific individuals who need your products and services. So go ahead and ask! Your contacts can also give prospects your name and number. As the number of referrals you receive increases, so does your potential for increasing the percentage of your business generated through referrals.

4. Got a happy customer? By telling others what they've gained from using your products or services in presentations or informal conversations, your sources can encourage others to use your products or services.

5. Make a special TV appearance. Local cable TV stations often have very reasonable advertising rates at time slots throughout the day and night. Though you won't necessarily reach prime-time viewers, you will make an impression where it counts-in the comfort of potential customers' homes.

6. Offer expert advice. Teaching a class, speaking at a community meeting, or writing an article for a local paper not only makes you look like an expert but garners low-cost attention for your business.

Although, this list doesn't include a more elaborate online marketing discussion as a money-saving method of promoting a home business, the abovementioned forms of penny-pinching promotion tactics are still worth a nod.

Can you think of more ingenious ways to market your home business or just about any business for that matter?